Nothing to see here. Move along everybody, move along. Rest assured Toronto Emergency Medical Services’ (EMS) senior management is now in control and normal service will resume shortly.

Oh dear. Talk about the sum of all fears.

Last Friday, embattled EMS Chief Paul Raftis chose to reassure staff that all is sunshine and rainbows in his domain in a manner easily characterized by the above.

In a letter obtained by the Toronto Sun and revealed publicly here for the first time, Raftis (briefly) touched on some of the concerns raised by this newspaper over the past month and the increasingly troubled administration of EMS.

Specifically, we have taken management to task over monumental amounts of overtime paid to senior staff, poor spending decisions on critical infrastructure, free use of emergency vehicles by overly entitled managers, and the lack of fiscal discipline needed to handle a budget that runs into tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.

The Sun has furthermore highlighted EMS’ dwindling ability to meet its own targeted response times to emergency call-outs across the city.

Now it seems we’re not alone in calling for closer EMS scrutiny. A city councillor spoke out Monday and asked Raftis questions during budget review sessions about the administration of this essential service provider.

Specifically, Councillor Janet Davis said she was worried about news that for the first time, EMS is using part-time paramedics while next month 10 full-time paramedic positions and 16 non-paramedic positions will remain empty as we head into the new year.

Not good enough, according to Davis. She said it is a health and safety issue and this city’s acknowledged problems in improving EMS response times to critical emergencies worry her.

“You cannot convince me that the way to solve diminishing emergency response times is to have less people on the front line, it just doesn’t make sense,” Davis said.

“I know of EMS staff who are first responders and work 12-hour straight shifts without once taking a break. How does that help anyone? When you are dealing with life-and-death situations, minutes, just minutes, can make the life-saving difference.

“I asked Chief Raftis a series of questions and I still am not totally happy with the answers. There is more I’d like to know.”

So would we. Specifically, Raftis should tell taxpayers why EMS is going in reverse despite the massive amounts of public money being showered on it.

We revealed last month that EMS handles over 700 calls per day for emergency services and over a normal year that works out to well over 300,000 responses.

In 1996, EMS reached 84% of dire emergency calls within 8 minutes. By 2009, that number was down to 64%. From 2009 to 2010, the number slipped even further to 61.7%.

Raftis has previously acknowledged that despite a nearly 30% rise in emergency patient transport volumes over the past decade, the paramedic workforce has remained static.

Now it is taking on less experienced part-time workers to help reduce that load while failing to address the fundamental lack of front-line, full-time workers.

That is something that worries front-line medic Ken Horton.

“It defies logic to think that you can freeze staff hiring while at the same time improve emergency response levels across a city the size of Toronto,” Horton said. “I am glad Councillor Davis has waded into this debate because Chief Raftis has categorically refused to meet with us and talk this through.

“Not only that, when our men and women turn up at City Hall in uniform to try and raise issues with councillors and staff, we are penalized.”

Horton takes issue with the letter released to staff.

He says it simply acknowledges criticism, poor service response times and increased spending, but shows no way any of that will be addressed beyond soft platitudes.

“It’s all very vague and saying things will change … hope is coming … all will be good in the future … trust the pending management report … but it is very vague, Pollyanna stuff.

“One major point needs to be made. I think plenty of front-line medics are furious the letter released by Chief Raftis talks about reduced overtime when the figures show unrestrained overtime is booming, year in and year out, at the most senior levels of EMS management.

“For all intents and purposes, it looks like EMS is running out of control.”

EMS chief reassures staff — not taxpayers

Nothing to see here. Move along everybody, move along. Rest assured Toronto Emergency Medical Services’ (EMS) senior management is now in control and normal service will resume shortly.

Oh dear. Talk about the sum of all fears.

Last Friday, embattled EMS Chief Paul Raftis chose to reassure staff that all is sunshine and rainbows in his domain in a manner easily characterized by the above.

In a letter obtained by the Toronto Sun and revealed publicly here for the first time, Raftis (briefly) touched on some of the concerns raised by this newspaper over the past month and the increasingly troubled administration of EMS.